Let The Walls Break Down

-March 20, 2009-

I set up camp for the new tour then waited for someone to talk to me. This is the part I hate about being the merch person. I think Kennedy called me “Merchandise Manager.” Soon enough, Eric came around the corner.

“Hollyyyyyyyy!” He whined. “Have you called Maria yet?” He bent over and propped himself up on the table.

I took out my phone and sighed. A few rings later, she answered. “Hey Holly. Is it Eric?”

“You know it,” I said and handed the phone to him.

“Hey, are you going to the Milwaukee show?” he asked and walked away. With my phone.

Then I saw Sean Foreman and Nat Motte walk to my table. I almost died.

“Hey, are you Holly?” Nat asked.

“Y-yeah,” I stuttered. I don’t know why I was so nervous.

“John told us you wanted to meet us. So maybe we could hang out during tour sometime,” Sean said and handed me a $10 bill. “I’ll take that white shirt right there.”

“Thank you, kind sir,” I said and handed him a shirt. “And yeah, sounds cool.” I wanted to sound more excited, but they would probably get the wrong idea about me and think I’m either coming on to them or some psycho teenie kid. Nat gave me a peace sign and they walked away. What nice guys.

Eric came running back to me with a childish expression. “She said she’d come. I get to see her again!” I looked at him intensely until he calmed down.

“You should tell her how you feel. I mean, don’t get in between her and Jack, but you should just let it all out. I’m sure she probably already knows, by the way I call her and she knows you’re behind it, but tell her yourself.”

“You are a genius, Holly Richards!” He grabbed my arms and kissed my cheek and ran away, kicking his heels together in the air.

“That kid has so many issues,” I muttered to myself. I heard laughing behind me and I thought it was John, but it was Nadaddy, Family Force 5’s keyboardist. I’ve never liked Nadaddy as a person. I wanted someone to distract me so I wouldn’t have to talk to him, but we were the only people in the opening area. Damn.

“So, you’re with the Maine, right?” He asked and started walking closer to me. I didn’t say anything, but nodded. “Yeah, I like them. I listened to their CD on the way here.”

“Nadaddy, leave the poor girl alone,” I heard this country guy say, and Soul Glow Activatur walked past him. “Shoot, she don’t wanna talk to you.” He smiled at me quickly and exited the room, with Nadaddy in tow. I breathed a sigh of relief.

-April 12, 2009-

It was the Milwaukee date and I couldn’t wait to see Maria. Eric couldn’t either. He had this countdown calendar on their van. Psycho. Once she got here, John got the guard to let her in early and as we hugged, Eric came out of nowhere and joined us, ultimately pushing me away.

“Hi Eric,” she laughed and hugged me again. “Miss Holly I have to speak with you. Privately.” She eyed Eric and we locked arms and went into the bathroom. “I’m thinking about breaking up with Jack,” she said and sat on the counter.

“What?! Why?”

Maria shrugged. “I’m tired of him. I mean, as I’m getting older, he’s staying the same age, mentally. He’s such a child and I know he’s not going to want to settle down with anybody, let alone me, so why should I be wasting my time?”

“Uh…you’re 19. You’re supposed to be having fun, not looking for anything long term. You know that. And how do you know if he’s looking for something serious or not? How long have you guys been together now? A year and a half?”

“Thereabouts. It’s time. I can feel it.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Fine. Do whatever you want; I’m not going to stop you.”

“Besides,” she said and hopped off the counter, “I think I like Eric. He seems like he would be serious. And he’s in love with me.”

“Are you in love with him?” I felt like a mother trying to get her to reason.

“Who knows? Only time will tell.” She could read on my face that I thought everything was falling apart. “Okay. Therapist Maria time. I know that me breaking up with Jack makes you feel like you’re losing the good part of Rian, but only you can control if you’re losing him or not. That has nothing to do with me and/or Jack. Reconcile with him if you want to, but remember the good part isn’t the only part of him.”

I hugged her. I think she was right. I think deep inside I didn’t want Rian out of my life.

“Fiancée!” We heard in the hallway. I started to open the door.

“You didn’t tell me you were getting married!” Maria said, holding on to my arm.

“I’m getting married.” I tried to get out the door again but she still pulled me back.

“Did you tell your parents?”

“No, we were going to tell them tomorrow. Or next year.” I finally got in the hallway and John was walking away. “Fiancé!” I called to him and he turned around. And then what ensued was a typical Notebook moment. I ran to him and he caught me and we kissed. Maybe in slow motion.

“How’s Maria?” he asked once I got back on the ground.

“Something’s messed up in her head. She wants to break up with Jack.”

“WHAT?!” Eric came around the corner with this permasmile plastered to his face. “SHE’S SINGLE?!”

It took me a minute to regroup. “Not yet… But she said she wanted to be with you. Maybe you should go find her.”

He started running down the hallway and screaming her name.

-The Next Day-

We had a day off and since the next city was only 8 hours away, we decided to hang at my house. I forgot I was wearing my engagement ring.

“Holly, can I talk to you?” My mom asked and immediately pulled me into her bedroom. “What is this?” She grabbed my hand and made me look at my own ring. So pretty…

“It’s a ring, Mom,” I said, thinking about John’s response he’d given me. “Before you freak out, it’s an engagement ring, but its purpose right now is to symbolize that we’re going to be together forever. We’re not getting married for a long time,” I said and exaggerated ‘long.’

“But he asked you to marry him.”

“Yeah, on Christmas at Garrett’s house. It was so cute; he cut me a piece of pie and put the ring inside.” I smiled, remembering it.

“Well, I’m happy for you, I just wish you would have told us sooner.”

“There’s nothing to tell. I would have told you when we actually started thinking about getting married and all that.” She gave me a hug.

“My baby’s all grown up.”

“Just don’t tell Dad.”

“Oh hell no. I don’t want to die!”

John and I went outside to escape the smell of fried chicken and we sat under my tree and started playing with the grass. “So my mom knows,” I said and watched John try to peel the grass blade apart.

“What about your dad?” He asked and looked back at my house, expecting him to come barreling out as I laughed.

“No he doesn’t know. I don’t think he’d be able to see my ring and be able to put two and two together. Just in case, I should take it off anyway.” I slid it off my finger and before I put it in my pocket, John took it and put it on his necklace and tucked it in his shirt. I smiled but something else in the background caught my attention. “Oh my god, who the hell is that?!” He looked the direction I was.

“That…is Eric. And the person attached to his face is Maria. Did she even break up with Jack yet?”

I shrugged. “I’m not going to get in the middle of this.” And of course I immediately yelled at them, getting in the middle of it. “Hey! Get a room!”

Maria whipped her head around at me and immediately turned red. “What are you talking about?” She yelled back and fixed her hair and Eric looked like he was buttoning his shirt. What kinda freaky shit was going on beside my house? “Just because you act like you’re married doesn’t mean the rest of us have to!”

“We don’t act like we’re married!”

We both stood up and John grabbed my hand as he said, “Yeah, honey let’s go inside and watch Family Feud before it goes off,” loud enough to where they could hear.

We went inside but didn’t watch Family Feud and my mom just got off the phone and lost all the color in her face.

“Mom, are you okay?”

She looked at me and shook her head. “Holly, I need to talk to you.” I obediently followed her into her bedroom.

--John--

I sat on the couch and flipped through the channels and Holly had been in her parent’s room for about 20 minutes so I decided to go upstairs and put our stuff back in the suitcases. Another 10 minutes passed and I plopped down in her computer chair and wrote ‘I love Holly’ on her desk. Then I heard the door shut quietly behind me as I turned around and saw her red eyes and torn expression.

“What’s wrong?” I said walking towards her.

She shook her head like she couldn’t speak, after a moment of gaining her composure, she finally spoke. “My grandmother just passed away. Her funeral is Saturday, so I’m going to want to stay here the rest of the tour.” I wrapped my arms around her and pressed my cheek to her forehead as she lightly stroked my back. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no there’s nothing to be sorry for. It’s okay you need to be here with your family. Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine. We’ll just come pick you up after the tour. It wouldn’t kill us to take a little time apart.”

She looked up at me and smiled, although her eyes still were full of despondency. “I love you,” she said and hugged me.

“I know,” I said as I enveloped her in my arms and she chuckled.

“Is this a Han Solo – Princess Leia moment?”

“As long as I’m Han Solo,” I retorted and she giggled.

****

We were getting ready to get back on the road later that night and I could tell Holly didn’t want me to go. She said goodbye to Jared, Pat, Garrett, and Kennedy, but she still hasn’t said anything to me.

“Why aren’t you telling me goodbye?” I asked as she gave me one of her many hugs today.

“Because if I tell you goodbye then that’s basically me saying I’m okay that you’re leaving, and I’m not.” She looked up at me to see if I remembered that I said the exact same thing to her.

“Well you know that I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. I didn’t know if you were ever coming back.”

“Well I did. And how do I know that you’ll come back for me?”

I pulled out the necklace that had her ring on it and kissed it and she kissed it too.

“Goodbye John,” she said and enclosed her arms around my neck and I picked her up and kissed her.

“Goodbye Holly.”